Meta

The new Three R's

There are a number of lists of “The three R’s”:

Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

Reduce Reuse Recycle

Read, Write, Recite.

After a recent discussion at a North Side Coffee Morning (#nscm), I devised a new list of 3 R’s to help focus a little more on things that count (outside the realm of the academic education arena). These 3 R’s can be used in almost all aspects of life, and is something i am trying to instill in my children:

Respect.

esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability*

Respect for yourself and others is an important trait to have. Not much can happen in this world without respect. If you respect the people that matter, it can take you far!

Responsibility.

One of the most important traits you can have is to be responsible: Responsible to yourself, your fellow man and the world you live in. Responsibility is an important part of life because it shows that you care about what you do and the impact you have. Having the fortitude to stand up and admit you stuffed up or hurt someone goes a long way. It’s also one of the cornerstones of trust, an important part of what makes the world go round.

Resilience.

This is a tough skill to learn. The ability to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back into it is one of the skills that will see you through many encounters in life, both good and bad! It’s quite a difficult skill to teach, however I have been trying with my boys to get them to understand that there will be times where things don’t go your way. It’s how you act when things are not going your way. It used to be called ‘character building’, but today I’ll call it resilience. Empathy with the ‘other’ side of the story or being able to see things from both sides can help.

Can you think of any other R’s that could make useful traits for life?

3 thoughts on “The new Three R's”

Hmm! I like your 3 Rs – esp resilience its my mantra – ‘dust yourself off, pick yourself up and way we go!’

I also like Radiance – I like to believe that no matter what I’m feeling that I can radiate a sunny cheery disposition to others. There’s enough in their world without me adding my issues to it. Plus putting on a happy face makes your own troubles feel lighter.

Hi Julie – I like the Radiance, too – I do my best to spread my warmth and happiness to all I meet, both on Twitter as well as in real life. There are times I simply can’t, but generally sit back and mull over things – that’s part of my resilience, knowing how to cope when it gets too hard/soft/bad! Thanks for your comments 🙂